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Heathers and more

Last night, I watched the movie Heathers with a friend. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but a dark comedy was not it. Heathers is a super dark comedy about the popular girls in school and what happens when a popular girl and her new boyfriend decide to get even. There is more violence than I expected.

Of course, this movie about school violence got me wondering about other incidences of school violence. The boyfriend in the movie wore a long black trench-like coat, just like the two students at Columbine. We couldn't remember when Columbine happened, so we checked out the wikipedia page (1999, for the record). When I was at that page, there was some information on other deadly incidences in schools.

Imagine my shock to learn about the Bath School Disaster. In 1927, a bomber at a school killed 38 school kids and a handful of adults (teachers and rescue workers). He was apparently upset by taxes levied for the school that "caused" his farm to go into foreclosure. It is interesting to hear that taxes, foreclosures, and the like are absolutely nothing new. This man did quite a bit of planning over a number of months, including smuggling explosives into the school slowly over time. There is further intrigue in this story on the long wikipedia article (linked above) if you're interested in further reading.

As someone going into the teaching business, this whole business of bullying and school violence has been on my mind a lot recently. So has school funding. I have been doing some good classroom management reading. In one piece, the author cited a statistic that 50% of kids report having been bullied at least once or twice in a 6 month period. This is significantly higher than the incidences of overt misbehavior in a classroom. While bullying wasn't the issue in the Bath School Disaster, it was in Heathers and may have been in Columbine and other school shootings. And the Bath School Disaster still involved taxes and disagreements similar to what we're seeing today in our political discourse. In all of this (bullying, taxes, schools), my main plea is for civility and understanding. I intend to be the kind of teacher that encourages conversation and does not allow boorish behavior. In my eyes, all of us standing up for reason, conversation, understanding, and patience is the only way to forge ahead and make a stronger future in all senses.

Reading

Perhaps I sound like a broken record, but I am still quite inspired by decluttering posts. I especially love this post about giving up your fantasy life. It is okay to keep things you use. But if you don't use it, perhaps giving it up is for the best. I especially love the example of the author's own life. She always dreamed of being a princess and collected antiques, fancy tea sets, beaded dresses, and other fineries. But it was only once she let go of these items that she had the freedom to truly move to England and pursue her life.

I'm still contemplating my dream life. But while I work at "finding myself," I can still let go of some things. For example, I am making a future with a physics teacher. We will always have physics books around. I really don't have to save the physics notes. It was hard to let them go, but I know it is for the better.

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Another set of great reading I've been doing concerns raising kids as a community. It is the responsibility of all of us to take care of children and be responsible for their growth. Part of this is being intentional in our actions. I don't think people intentionally mean to skew children, but even out best intended actions might not come across as we mean them to.

The first article is called How to Talk to Little Girls. The author focuses on encouraging girls in reading or other pursuits rather than always focusing on appearance. It can be hard to do; it is simple to compliment young ladies on how they look. But always emphasizing the physical aspects can teach girls that looks are all that matter. Definitely worth a read.

The other great blog post comes from Mighty Girl, entitled Here We Go. In the post is a video Maggie did with other moms that covers how they talk (or don't talk) to their kids about sexual abuse. The real gem, in my opinion, is what Maggie says wasn't covered by the article. She, and many of the commenters, write thoughtfully about how to honor your kids' space and autonomy. If you click over, read through all the comments for a great discussion.

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Overall, I'm keeping quite busy here. I am hoping to get pictures from this summer up one of these days (and finish my recounting of our trip!). We had an amazing time visiting Oregon and seeing my parents and friends. We came back running and have been catching up with friends and enjoying the area. This is the first year in a decade that neither Matt nor I have to move in the summer. In the past ten years, I have lived in 14 different places! Maybe someday I'll do a roundup of all these homes.